Then we’ll have to dismantle Garibaldi’s army, which now numbers almost sixty thousand men—they’re better not left roaming about as they please, so the volunteers will be accepted into the Savoy army and the others sent home with money in their pockets. All fine fellows, all heroes. And you want us, by releasing that damned report of yours to the newspapers and the general public, to say that these Garibaldini, who are about to become our own soldiers and officers, were a bunch of scoundrels, for the most part foreign, who pillaged their way through Sicily? You want us to say that Garibaldi is not the selfless hero to whom the whole of Italy should be grateful, but an adventurer who defeated a bogus enemy by buying them off? And that he plotted with Mazzini to the very end to make Italy a republic? And you want us to say that Nino Bixio went around Sicily executing liberals and massacring shepherds and peasants? You’re mad!»
«But gentlemen, you employed me—»
«We did not employ you to slander Garibaldi and those fine Italians who fought with him, but to find documents that might show how the hero’s republican entourage were misgoverning the occupied lands, so as to justify an intervention from Piedmont.»
«But gentlemen, you are well aware that La Farina—»
«La Farina wrote private letters to Count Cavour, which he certainly hasn’t been waving around. And then La Farina is La Farina—someone who bears a particular grudge against Crispi. And last of all, what’s this nonsense about gold from the English Masons?»
«Everyone’s talking about it.»
«Everyone? We’re not. And what are these Masons anyway? Are you a Mason?»
«No, I’m not, but—»
«So don’t involve yourself in matters that are of no concern to you. Let the Masons stew in their own juice.»
Simonini evidently hadn’t realized that the whole Savoy government were Freemasons—and with all the Jesuits he’d had around him as a child, perhaps he should have done so. But Riccardi had already moved on to the question of the Jews, asking by what twisted notion he had included them in his report.
Simonini stammered, «The Jews are everywhere, and don’t you think—»
«It doesn’t matter what we think or don’t think,» interrupted Saint Front. «The fact is that in a united Italy we also need the support of the Jewish community. What is more, it’s pointless telling good Italian Catholics that Garibaldi’s selfless heroes also included Jews. In short, with all these blunders of yours, we’d have every reason to send you off for a good long time to enjoy the air at one of our comfortable Alpine fortresses. But regrettably we still need you. It would seem that this Captain Nievo (or Colonel or whatever) is still down there with all his account books.
We have no idea, in primis, whether he’s been keeping them correctly and, in secundis, whether it is politically wise for these accounts to be disclosed. You tell us Nievo intends to hand them over to us, and that would be good, but if he shows them to others before they reach us, then it would not. And so you will return to Sicily, once again as a correspondent for Professor Boggio reporting on the new and momentous events. You will attach yourself like a leech to Nievo and make sure the accounts disappear, vanish into thin air, go up in smoke, so there’s no more talk of them. It is for you to decide how to do this, and you are authorized to use any means, provided of course they are lawful, nor should you expect further orders from us. Cavalier Bianco will give you a contact at the Bank of the Two Sicilies to assure the necessary funds.»
At this point Dalla Piccola’s account is also fairly sketchy and incomplete, as if he too were having difficulty recalling what his counterpart was constrained to forget.
It seems, however, that having returned to Sicily at the end of September, Simonini remained there until March of the following year, trying unsuccessfully to get his hands on Nievo’s accounts and receiving a fortnightly dispatch from Cavalier Bianco asking with a certain impatience how far he had progressed.
Nievo was now dedicating body and soul to those confounded accounts, increasingly worried about malicious rumors, expending more and more energy investigating, examining, scrutinizing thousands of receipts so as to be sure of what he was recording. He had been given considerable authority, since Garibaldi was also anxious not to create scandal and gossip, and had arranged for him to have an office with four assistants and two guards at the entrance and on the stairways so that no one could, so to speak, enter its confines at night in search of the accounts.
Indeed, Nievo had let it be known that he suspected someone might not be happy about what they contained. He feared the accounts might be stolen or tampered with and had therefore done his best to ensure they were impossible to find. And all Simonini could do was consolidate his friendship with the poet, with whom he was now on more informal terms, so as to understand what he planned to do with those wretched books.
They spent many evenings together, in an autumnal Palermo that still languished in heat untempered by the sea breezes, sipping an occasional water and anisette, allowing the liqueur to diffuse gradually in the water like a cloud of smoke. Little by little, Nievo abandoned his military reserve and came to trust Simonini, perhaps because he liked him, perhaps because he felt himself to be a prisoner in the city and needed the company of someone else with whom he could daydream. He talked about a love he had left behind in Milan, an impossible love, because her husband was not only his cousin but also his best friend. Nothing could be done about it. Other loves had already driven him to hypochondria.
«That’s how I am, and how I’m condemned to remain. I will always be a moody, dark, somber, irritable individual. I’m now thirty and have always fought wars to distract me from a world I do not love. And so I’ve left a great novel at home, still in manuscript. I’d like to get it printed, but can’t because I have these bloody accounts to look after. If I were ambitious, if I thirsted for pleasure…if I were at least bad…At least like Bixio. Never mind. I’m still a child, I live one day at a time, I love the excitement of rebellion, the air I breathe. I’ll die for the sake of dying…And then it will all be over.»
Simonini did not try to console him. He considered him incurable.
In early October there was the battle of Volturno, where Garibaldi fought off the Bourbon army’s last offensive. During that same period, General Cialdini had defeated the papal army at Castelfidardo and invaded Abruzzo and Molise, formerly part of the Bourbon kingdom. At Palermo, Nievo was frustrated. He had heard that among his accusers in Piedmont were followers of La Farina, who was apparently speaking ill of anyone connected with the Redshirts.
«It makes you want to give up,» said Nievo, dejected, «but it’s exactly at moments like this that we mustn’t abandon the helm.»
On the 26th of October the great event took place: Garibaldi met Vittorio Emanuele at Teano. The general practically handed over southern Italy. For this, said Nievo, he should at least have been appointed a senator. And yet, at the beginning of November, Garibaldi lined up fourteen thousand men and three hundred horses at Caserta and waited for the king to come and review them, and the king never appeared.
On the 7th of November, the king made his triumphal entry into Naples, but Garibaldi, a modern-day Cincinnatus, withdrew to the island of Caprera. «What a man,» said Nievo. And he cried, as poets do (which greatly irritated Simonini).
A few days later, Garibaldi’s army was disbanded. Twenty thousand volunteers were accepted into the Savoy army, but so too were three thousand Bourbon officers.
«That’s fair, they’re Italians too,» said Nievo. «But it’s a sad ending to our epic campaign. I’m not signing up. I’ll take six months’ pay, then goodbye. Six months to complete my job—I hope I’ll manage it.»
It must have been a dreadful job. By the end of November he had barely completed the accounts to the end of July. At a rough guess, another three months were needed, perhaps more.
When Vittorio Emanuele reached Palermo in December, Nievo told Simonini: «I’m the last Redshirt down here and I’m looked upon as a savage. What’s more, I have to answer the slanders of La Farina’s lot. Good Lord, if I knew it would end like this, instead of leaving Genoa for this prison I’d have drowned myself and been better off.»
Simonini had still not found a way of laying his hands on those wretched accounts. Then all of a sudden, in mid-December, Nievo announced he was returning to Milan for a short visit. Leaving the accounts in Palermo? Taking them with him? It was impossible to know.
Nievo planned to be away for almost two months, and Simonini tried to make use of that
